Would you pay for great search results?

In our experiments at Emantix with automating search queries, we discovered something really curious -- the longer and richer the query, more often than not the top result was very, very good. But the following results were not -- at all.  In fact, in our experimental search engine, howdoya.com, we had to tune down the richness of the query so that, at a glance, the entire results page looked good, giving the user an overall perception of quality.  And of course, when we tested with organically occurring ads, the same was true. Really great queries -- fewer, if any, ads, mediocre queries -- more ads.

So the question is, do more relevant search results diminish the quantity and quality of ads displayed? And if so, what are the implications of and opportunities in removing the obligations inherent in a paid advertising revenue model?

Why not an ad-free, fee-based search engine?  A low annual fee that is painless to an individual, but collectively, on a web-scale, could be a highly profitable enterprise?

Would you pay a nominal fee for better results and less visual clutter?

I would like to propose a word, a verb, to describe this opportunity  -- to "craigslist" -- or to disrupt an entire industry by eliminating a critical source of revenue.

A passion for process

Business process is something I have been fascinated with for some time now. And, while it may not be obvious at first glance, my current venture, Emantix, is simply the latest evolution of my fascination with and thinking on business process. After all, business processes are really nothing more than words organized in a such a way as to achieve consensus between two people or more as to what it is they do. Nothing more than words. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, interrogatives, prepositions, interjections... antonyms, synonyms, hyponyms, troponyms, hypernyms, meronyms... make a sentence with me.

But I digress.

In the last company I started, Contextware, I reinvented the mechanisms, the tools, of business process, as well as the output, or interface. But I did not go far enough. Truly reinventing process requires much more than mere functionality, buttons to push, true reinvention demands a greater and more comprehensive understanding of information and the rules of language itself, as that is where business process knowledge lives and breathes, and hides.

And the biggest challenge of all is whatever form the answer takes, if it isn't easy as hell to do, people won't do it, use it or buy it. So while my postings on this blog may cover many things, I apologize for how often I keep coming back to the fundamental business benefits of — and imperative for — reinventing business process.